This external event featuring talks by two researchers affiliated with The Design Lab at UC San Diego is organized by the Collaboratory for Downtown Innnovation's Game Changers lecture series.

Society's most daunting challenges call for new strategies that engage many diverse stakeholders to solve bigger and messier problems. While technology has made it easy to connect people, we need to advance fundamental research on "collective innovation," where groups collectively explore and refine solutions for complex, multifaceted problems in business and civics. To explore this, our research group contributes novel interactive systems to better understand 1) how to productively select and build on the most promising and creative ideas; 2) how to effectively engage in large-scale participatory design by gathering feedback from communities of stakeholders; and 3) how to engage citizens in decision-making processes related to civic issues. To guide and motivate the design of these systems, this research builds on theories of design thinking and collective intelligence.

The Collaboratory for Downtown Innovation is committed to building stronger connections between tech entrepreneurs in Downtown San Diego and UC San Diego and other research institutions on the Torrey Pines Mesa. This Game Changer Series is designed to link these two driving forces in the region's innovation economy.

The Collaboratory for Downtown Innovation (CDI) is a partnership between UC San Diego Extension and the Downtown San Diego Partnership, which is designed to deliver the resources needed to ensure that entrepreneurs and Downtown innovators have the skills, resources and connections needed to grow San Diego's burgeoning urban innovation ecosystem. The CDI also aims to deliver a growing and diverse pipeline of STEM competent, work-ready talent. The CDI is leveraging the expertise of partner agencies including the City of San Diego, Startup San Diego and SEED San Diego, to ensure UC San Diego is delivering on its mission to serve the local community in concert with the Downtown San Diego Partnership's commitment to enhancing growth and prosperity in the city.

SPEAKER BIO:

Steven Dow is an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at UC San Diego where he researches human-computer interaction, social computing, and creativity. Steven received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2015 for research on "advancing collective innovation." He was co-PI on three other National Science Foundation grants, a Google Faculty Grant, Stanford's Postdoctoral Research Award, and the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Grant. Steven was on the faculty in the HCI Institute at CMU from 2011-2015, and earned an MS and PhD in Human-Centered Computing from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a BS in Industrial Engineering from University of Iowa.

Downtown San Diego Partnership
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(Self-paid or street parking) is a postdoctoral fellow in the Design Lab at UC San Diego working with Steven Dow. Her research falls at the intersection of social computing and design with the goal of augmenting groups' ability to solve complex problems. Narges designs, develops and evaluate innovative visualization and interaction techniques that help people solve complex problems and make better decisions through collaborative visual exploration and analysis of data. Previously she was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Computer Science at UBC where she collaborated closely with Kellogg Booth in Computer Science, Ron Kellett and Cynthia Girling in Landscape Architecture to investigate use of collaboration technology and visualization techniques for increasing public engagement in Urban Design. This work won the honorable mention award from Interactive Surfaces and spaces conference in 2016.